WORKERS who maintain Coventry City Council parks and sports pitches are to go on strike on Friday following a long-running row....

WORKERS who maintain Coventry City Council parks and sports pitches are to go on strike on Friday following a long-running row.

Staff at Coventry Contract Services are to stage a walkout because they are increasingly frustrated at failure to resolve a dispute over a profit-sharing scheme.

Eighty per cent of grounds maintenance staff, based at the Whitley depot, have voted to take industrial action on Friday after months of internal wrangling.

The official stoppage could disrupt plans to prepare school sports pitches across Coventry in time for the new school term.

Other services to be affected will include council-managed green spaces such as parks and grass verges.

Tony Higham, industrial organiser for the Transport and General Workers Union, which represents the disgruntled staff, said: ?There was quite a substantial yes vote and industrial action will take place this Friday, between 7am and 1pm.?

An offer to settle the dispute was made by CCS bosses but it was turned down by the 37 affected workers last month.

TGWU secretary Bill Morris then gave the go-ahead for an official strike ballot, which was independently conducted by Electoral Reform Services.

The disagreement centres on a controversial profit-sharing scheme which staff say has left them more than #1,000 a year worse off, compared with other CCS colleagues.

Workers gave up 16 per cent of their salaries in exchange for an end-of-year profit-related bonus - but they say no returns have been received from the scheme since 1998.

Fellow maintenance workers, who formerly worked for a private contractor but returned to CCS later, are not part of the same deal.

Bosses have said that there have not been enough profits over the past few years to justify bonus payouts.